There's danger in thinking within the box.

Everyone who talks about creativity goes on and on about "thinking outside the box".  But what does that really mean?  And why is it so important?

Well, learning to think outside the box can really make a huge difference.  Trust me on this.  I know!

A couple years ago, I suffered through a horrible, torturous reminder about how important it is to think outside of the box.

Here's the story!

It was one of my first times visiting Germany, and I understood almost no German.  So, every time we went out to eat, I had to spend a ton of time poring over every single menu item with a dictionary in hand.  Then I'd ask my friends to translate - and of course, forget half of the menu by the time they finished.

It always took forever.

One night, we decided to order pizzas and, rather than spend my normal 30 minutes staring at the available toppings and making my German friends translate everything twice, I decided it would just be easier to order a normal, old-fashioned Pepperoni pizza.

I should have been warned when everyone asked me, "Just pepperoni?"

But no, being a confident American who has successfully ordered pizza hundreds of times in the US, I charged blindly ahead. 

"Just pepperoni!"  I said with a smile (thrilled there was a type of food I could order easily in Germany.)  After all, how hard could it be?

Then the pizzas arrived and boy, was I in for a surprise!

When I opened the boxes... I didn't see any pizzas that looked like mine.  Of course, there was a very simple explanation for that. 

In German, "pepperoni" does not refer to the style of pizza we Americans normally envision.  No, in Germany, a "pepperoni" is the topping you see on the right.

Wikipedia explains the source of my confusion:

Pepperoni is frequently used as a pizza topping in American-style pizzerias. It is the most popular pizza topping in North America....Pepperoni is a corruption of peperoni, the Italian plural of peperone, referring to the bell pepper, so that ordering "peperoni" pizza in Italy is often an unwelcome surprise for North American tourists." (read it here)

Exactly. I was just a little surprised!  It never occurred to me that pizza toppings were different in different countries.  My thinking was so stuck inside the (pizza) box that I couldn't imagine anything else was possible.

This is exactly the sort of thinking that happens in the real world too.  Most people never think beyond what they already know.  If you had asked people what they wanted most in transportation options at the beginning of the 20th century, they probably would have said they wanted a faster horse.

So, while you hopefully won't ever end up in the same situation as me - picking minuscule bits of hot pepper out of your overly-spiced pizza while your "friends" roar with laughter - remember that thinking only inside the box can blind you to the possibilities that are really out there.

(And, if you're ever in a foreign land, and your friends ask "are you sure you want that?"  PAY ATTENTION!)

Comments

[Andy (@c3pojones)]

Ha! I made the exact same mistake in Germany, super confident and happy I could understand and order one thing correctly (besides beer). Nice connection too. I appreciated the insights.
Andy

[Tobias]

I'll never forget the look on your face...
The American "Pepperoni" is a short form of the italian "peperone salami", btw. In that case simplicity didn't make your life easier ;)

[Jared]

Great post. I couldn't agree more about thinking outside the box. The biggest and greatest forward movements in history are due to people thinking outside the box.

[Paul Sloane]

I agree with the sentiments but I think that the phrase 'thinking outside the box' is a little hackneyed now. We need some creative alternatives. Dupont used to ask their chemists to 'think outside the molecule.' What can you suggest as innovative metaphors for this issue?

[Sparky Firepants]

I was at an event listening to Guy Kawasaki this morning and this is one of the points he made.

What are some ways you get out of the box in the first place? For me it's sometimes difficult to know when I'm stuck in my own paradigms.

I try to think of Doc Brown in back to the Future when he says to Marty, "You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!"

Any ideas?